In the first 36 hours after the Israeli offensive against Gaza started, Hamas militants fired only 150 rockets, some with a range of about 22 miles, toward Israeli towns. That is below their capacity of up to 200 a day, an estimate by Israeli military sources. "They are keeping their heads down," says a senior military intelligence officer. "Their accuracy is very low right now because of the dense aerial presence by Israeli planes. They know that the chances that they are being spotted by Israel surveillance and intelligence forces is very high." The officer adds, "The clear skies above the Gaza strip did not help them also." (See pictures of Israel's Deadly Assault on Gaza.)
The clear skies have also afforded ordinary Israeli citizens a chance to watch the onslaught — and applaud. At noon Sunday two Israeli Apache combat helicopters hovered in the air two miles east of Sderot, an Israeli town less than four miles from the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip. Below the choppers, a dozen ...
